{"id":3596,"date":"2007-01-08T08:45:24","date_gmt":"2007-01-08T08:45:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2007\/01\/cardinal-zen.html"},"modified":"2007-01-08T08:45:24","modified_gmt":"2007-01-08T08:45:24","slug":"cardinal-zen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2007\/01\/cardinal-zen.html","title":{"rendered":"Cardinal Zen"},"content":{"rendered":"

Asia News talks to Cardinal Zen:<\/a><\/p>\n

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The new year is a \u201ccrucial moment for the complicated situation facing the Church in China<\/span>\u201d however it does not look as if, \u201chumanly speaking, there are any openings.\u201d The speech of the pope to the diplomatic corps this morning is thus \u201ca right appeal for religious freedom that the country still does not have but that should not be feared.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

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This was the reaction, given to AsiaNews, of Cardinal Joseph Zen Ze-kiun, bishop of <\/span>Hong Kong<\/span>, to the address of Benedict XVI to the diplomatic corps accredited to the Holy See. <\/span><\/p>\n

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The pope said: \u201c<\/span>In most Asian countries, Christian communities tend to be small but lively, with a legitimate desire to be able to live and act in a climate of religious liberty. This is not only a primordial right but it is a condition that will enable them to contribute to the material and spiritual progress of society, and to be sources of cohesion and harmony.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

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For Mgr Zen, the pontiff\u2019s was a \u201cdesire that has been expressed for a long time, but when the pope says he hopes for more religious freedom, he underlines that this is not there yet. The hope is that all will truly understand that religious freedom is a good thing and a right that should not be feared. Undermining this right damages all society.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

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This is especially true for <\/span>China <\/span>where \u201chumanly it seems very difficult to emerge from the complicated situation that has been created between the official and unofficial Church and the Patriotic Association. Naturally, faith encourages us to hope. This is a crucial moment but conditions leading to a swift triumph of good are poor.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Asia News talks to Cardinal Zen: The new year is a \u201ccrucial moment for the complicated situation facing the Church in China\u201d however it does not look as if, \u201chumanly speaking, there are any openings.\u201d The speech of the pope to the diplomatic corps this morning is thus \u201ca right appeal for religious freedom that…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3596","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nCardinal Zen - Via Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2007\/01\/cardinal-zen.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Cardinal Zen - 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The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3596","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3596"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3596\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3596"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}